Role of Inventory Attorney

Florida has had problems with attorneys disappearing without their clients being aware. When this happens, deadlines being missed, cases being dismissed, and innocent parties being deprived of effective counsel.  The FL Bar got a lot of complaints from aggrieved clients who were harmed when an attorney "fuzzed out", became unavailable, for whatever reason. The FL Bar got tired of being stuck with cleaning up these type of messes.

We all understand that attorneys are forced into hiring an Inventory Attorney, its not anyone's choice.  We all understand this especially affects Solo Attorneys.  We also understand that paying someone for the long-odds service is like forcing people to buy expensive lottery tickets.

BUT

If an Inventory Attorney is called into action, its roughly equivalent to "Mayday" and the plane is about to crash. Once we are called in by the FL Bar, the law practice has already crashed. Thus, the more information you provide ahead of time, the more quickly we can clean up the mess. That is why we have the multi-tiered pricing structure.

$299/year, but only for those who  provide three things on a USB stick.  

1) a list of your various filings including docket numbers, and the specific Courts where something was filed.  In case of "MayDay", we need this to quickly notify that Court that there is a problem, and that you are no longer Counsel of Record. We are merely trying to quickly locate these clients and notify them they need to find another law firm.  

2) some way to contact your clients, preferably an e-mail address or text #.  We would just send them the quickest briefest notice possible, e.g. "your former attorney XXX YYY is no longer practicing law, you need to find new counsel as soon as possible".  

3) some idea of where your office is physically located, including any physical papers files that may be on-premises therein. It may be necessary for the Inventory Attorney to review and assess these physical papers.  If a "MayDay" occurs, the FL Bar will likely force us to enter these premises and require we try to sort out any papers.

The payments are due every year, and this information should be updated every year. A new USB stick should arrive every year.

CLOUD STORAGE AND INTERNET (avoid this, a possible data-breach)

We don't want your mobile phone. We don't want your mobile records. You should not have been storing or tracking your client-relationships on a mobile device no matter what.  If you back up your law firm data to the cloud, we don't want that either.

We don't want cloud storage or cloud access. The possibility of data-breach is enormous.

We only want minimal data in order to clean up a mess.  We request you mail us a simple USB.  Put whatever information you want on this USB, but it must have some form of the above 3 items.  A Word docX, or an Excel, or something.  Don't give us your contacts from your mobile device.

$399/year:  you give us nothing, just your name and FL Bar Registration#.  Many people engage an Inventory Attorney only under duress, and don't agree with the requirement, and refuse to cooperate beyond the bare minimum. That's fine. However, this position costs more, because if a "Mayday" occurs and we have to step in as Inventory Attorney, our task will be more difficult.

$XXX/year:  we are still deciding on the various tiers, what other ways we can provide these services. Also, the FL Bar can change their policies and requirements.

Like with paramedics, if we need to get involved, its almost always really bad news. The only way we get involved is when things have gone really bad for an attorney. They are either dead, impaired, or disbarred.

We are not providing this service as a way of stealing clients. We are providing this service because the FL Bar has insisted that somebody provide this service. 

We have no idea. We will try to give the client a lot of choices, preferably at least 6 choices within the specific legal field and geographic region.

Once an Inventory Attorney is appointed, that Attorney can forget about ever practicing law again.  We are not doing this to be nice to you.